By plurality of elevators in the sense of the present invention there is to be understood, in particular, a plurality of elevator cars, wherein the elevator cars can run in one elevator shaft and/or adjacent to one another and/or one above the other in several elevator shafts.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,989,694 A discloses an elevator installation in which a group control selects an elevator for each floor call actuated at a floor terminal and displays all status data on a floor display device to the user activating the floor call. For example, the elevator is selected which serves the floor in the shortest time and also the filling state and possible travel restrictions of the elevator are displayed. If the user is in agreement with the selection, he or she does not have to do anything further and can board the elevator car. In the elevator car the user must then actuate a car call in order to inform the group control about the travel destination of the user. If, however, the user is not in agreement with the selection then he or she can, through actuation of a button of the floor terminal, deselect the elevator displayed on the floor display device, whereupon the group control selects and displays another elevator.
A method for communication with a transport system is known from EP 1 041 032 A1, in which the user makes known his or her travel destination already at the boarding floor to a destination call control unit. The one-step destination call control is substantially more efficient than the two-step floor call, car call control. Since the destination call control unit knows the travel destination of the user already on actuation of the destination call the unit can calculate more than merely the elevator car most quickly serving the boarding floor; rather, it effectively determines the elevator car transporting the user most quickly to the travel destination. In addition, the user after boarding the elevator car no longer has to activate a further car call. The transport system of EP 1 041 032 A1 can be, for example, an elevator installation with at least one elevator shaft in which several elevator cars run with a high degree of autonomy. Provided as a communications unit is, for example, a touch-screen display device on which several travel destinations are displayed. The user selects his or her travel destination by contacting the touch-screen and thereupon obtains, displayed on the display device, information about which elevator car at which boarding location is to be boarded in order to get to his or her travel destination.
The user now has no influence on the elevator car determined by the destination call control unit by way of program and is at the mercy of the predetermined allocation algorithm.